1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a hand held tool for removing the contents of and scraping clean a container for liquid, semi-liquid and/or solid materials. More particularly, this invention relates to a hand held tool which is designed for removing, scraping, scooping and/or cleaning the contents of a container, usually but not limited to metal or plastic pails or buckets, tubs or tins, or the like of various sizes and shapes.
2. Prior Art
The removal of residual material from a container has been a difficult problem to solve. For example, when one wishes to remove residual liquid material, such as paint, from a can, the can usually is turned upside down to pour the paint from the can. While this works reasonably well, most paint cans are provided with a lip that prevents complete pouring of the paint from the can.
An even more difficult problem is witnessed when one attempts to remove residual semi-liquid or semi-solid materials, such as jelly, butter, joint compound, ready mixed mortar, and the like from their containers. In such cases simply turning the container upside down will not cause the semi-liquid material to drain therefrom.
Accordingly, there have been a number of tools developed for the sole purpose of removing residual material from a container. Such tools have included various putty knives, spoons, scoops, trowels, spatulas, scrapers, and the like, and many of these tools have been patented. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 755,521 discloses a hand tool for cleaning tins, pots and other vessels and utensils. The tool is comprised of a wooden handle and a hard rubber scraper having three edges, two of which are straight, forming a right angle at the point where they meet, and the other being in the form of an arc.
U.S. Pat. No. 302,813 discloses a butter ladle which is comprised of an elongated handle and a blade portion which is attached to the handle and which is convex on its back face and concave on its front face. The tool is particularly adapted to remove butter from the edges and corners of a churn.
Still other scraping or scooping devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,704,329; 2,012,637; 2,319,870; 2,817,867; 2,935,758; 4,159,839; 4,447,927 and 4,355,432. The devices of these patents have been designed to scrape or scoop various cooking and baking vessels, paint cans, gutters, boat hulls and the like; and while each of these patented devices is somewhat useful, there exists a need for still improved hand tools which can be used to facilitate the essentially complete removal of a variety of liquid, semi-liquid and/or semi-solid materials from conventional containers.